I work as a screenwriter for film & TV. In a former life I was a media specialist & campaign ad writer. Follow me on Twitter @MarkHughesFilms; add me on Google+; and read my question and answers about film, comics, and more on Quora.

Predicting The Oscars - Who Will Take Home The Gold?

In just three days, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will host the 85th Annual Academy Awards show. Which means it’s time to make my final predictions about who will be going home with the gold. These are my guesses for who will actually win, mind you, not necessarily my personal votes for who should win — although in several instances, my votes would match the ones I think are going to actually win.

This year’s race for Best Picture and Best Director are probably the most unpredictable and competitive in recent memory, with three films neck and neck in the tightening race. Lincoln was the frontrunner heading to a presumed coronation until Argo began racking up win after win from the Hollywood guilds. But then came a surge for Silver Linings Playbook, which is enjoying great buzz and has become one of the most popular films among the nominees. And as Lincoln and Argo push and pull at one another’s voting blocks and everyone contemplates the Best Director situation, Silver Linings Playbook — with a loyal and growing block of voters of its own — could sprint right into the winner’s circle.

The new voting system at the Oscars is based on ranking the films in order of preference, so it’s more important to place consistently high on many lists than placing high on a few lists. My guess is that the fight between Argo and Lincoln is causing partisans in both camps to rank their preference at the top of their ballots and then rank the other film much lower, while a lot of voters in both camps are probably placing Silver Linings Playbook within their top three films. Meanwhile, Silver Linings Playbook has its own group of strong supporters placing it right at the top as well.

Silver Linings Playbook is an entertaining, uplifting film with important issues at its heart. It’s both relevant and familiar to so many people on a personal level. It has a female lead who seems destined to take home Oscar gold, it’s nominated in all the right categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress), and the production itself was a very personal work for director David O. Russell. That filmmaking narrative, coupled with the story’s narrative and all of the other factors, makes it unique among the nominees. What other film this year can lay claim to all of that and also say it made you laugh, made you cry, and made you recognize someone you know, someone you love, or maybe some part of yourself?

So for the top prize, even though I’m sure all my esteemed colleagues will be picking Argo or Lincoln, I’m going to go against the grain and pick Silver Linings Playbook as the film that brings home the Oscars for Best Picture. And I think it also wins the Best Director race for David O. Russell, in a field where I think any nominees with a Best Picture nod will double-dip as usual. Michael Haneke won’t win for a foreign language film, Steven Spielberg won’t get it if he doesn’t also secure Best Picture, Behn Zeitlin won’t win on a first time nomination, and Ang Lee would be more likely to win if Argo took Best Picture.

The other scenarios that seem possible are either they split the awards — in which case Argo wins Best Picture and Spielberg wins Best Director for Lincoln (or perhaps Ang Lee for Life of Pi) — or Lincoln manages to hold on to its early presumptive position with strong support from larger voting blocks and triumphs in both categories. The former would mean Argo has to overcome 80 years of Oscar history to take Best Picture without even a nomination for Best Director, and the latter means Lincoln has to overcome a softening status amid a race that became highly competitive with strong challengers in the home stretch. Either are entirely feasible, and I know most other predictions have Argo walking away with Best Picture, but when faced with defying precedent and their internal indicators, I can’t help feeling the Academy is unlikely to go those routes.

Moving on to the acting categories, I think all but one of these are locks. Daniel Day-Lewis will take home the award for Best Actor, Jennifer Lawrence will take home the award for Best Actress, and Anne Hathaway will take home the award for Best Supporting Actress. But the Best Supporting Actor category is a race between Tommy Lee Jones and Alan Arkin. Jones is the front runner, no doubt about it. But I can’t shake the feeling Arkin might stage an upset, so I’m picking Arkin to win here.

Turn the page to keep reading my predictions for who will win the Oscars!

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